Posted
by
Hemos
on Monday November 06, 2006 @10:27AM
from the the-multi-color-apple dept.

An anonymous reader writes "While browsing the 2007 Macworldspeaker bios, I found an interesting Google+Mac piece of news. Looks like Google has appointed the famous Amit Singh in charge of their Mac Engineering (also confirmed on Singh's website). While Google generally seems to lag behind in Safari compatibility they have been offering some native Mac software. We earlier heard Google CEO Eric Schmidt's joining Apple's board of directors. Then following Microsoft MacBU's lead, Google started their own Mac Blog a few weeks earlier. Google's jobs website also lists several Mac openings. If Singh's technical expertise and history of OS X wizardry any indication, we can hope for some cool Mac software from Google. Also wondering if all this is just Google's response to Apple's market growth or maybe a more serious partnership is coming? ;-)"

Anytime we get wider acceptance of platforms other than Microsoft it is a good thing. It's not that I'm anti-microsoft so much as I prefer to have choices when it comes to computing platforms. Any effort made by companies to support more than just microsoft properly is a good thing in my books.

Indeed it is. But I think Google will do more to help this by making more tools Web Based then making Applicataions that run on different OS's While it is good that they are doing that. Making more Platform Independant Web Application Will do much more making all OS irelevlant and people can choose what platform and OS based on their personal needs and less of well this App only run on windows so I need windows.

Web apps are a great thing - if you have reliable, very fast, Internet access 24/7. I suspect the killer app is some hybrid of web and client apps. The data would get still stored locally. Not everyone is comfortable with losing access to data whenever the net goes down, plus the privacy implications and the fact that local storage is faster. As far as the applications themselves, they'll be in Java or some other platform-independent language, but they'll be cached locally for the most part. Again, you wouldn't want to be stuck with a brick when the your net access breaks. Perhaps updates and seldom-used features would download on demand from the net, but things like MS Office more or less do that already.

Going to all web apps would be going back to the mainframe/dumb terminal days of the 1970s. It would negate most of the advantages of owning a PC.

iTunes is still very much like a traditional app with net access though. I'm sure iTunes wouldn't be nearly the sucess that it is if you had to stream all media from their site rather than downloading it, or (in a full web scenario), if it was just a website where you streamed stuff across.I think the internet is a wonderful thing, and we have only begun to tap it's potention. But IMHO, the most potential still lies in local applications that access the internet for external data, not in applications that

I think for the average user, web based applications are an ideal solution. Most of the "advantages" of the personal computer have been a disaster for the average joe - it puts them in the pilot's seat when the best place for him is really back in the passenger area. Here's how I see it, with Gmail as the example:

I'm still advocating local caching of applications and data, at least for frequently used stuff. It's grossly inefficient to keep downloading the same data over and over again. There's also stu

Reliability isn't the issue as much as exposure: after all, bank vaults offer better security, but some documents you'd rather entrust to your private safe instead of having to contact the bank every time, no matter how secure.

I think the biggest problem/complaint people have against net storage versus local storage is the ability of others to access the data. There are some things you trust to store outside of your home like money, since the bank guarantees better security with tight access controls. They have a history of less risk than a more personal solution. It makes sense to trust them rather than your mattress.

Online info storage, though, more resembles a train station locker. Sure, you may be the only one with the safe combination, but it's stored in a public place and you really don't know how easy it is to pick the lock. And since the location experiences a lot of traffic passing through, you don't know who could be eavesdropping/reading over your shoulder.

I think that web-based tools will migrate more to personal/intranet versions for this reason. I can run my LAMP tools on my PowerBook and access them locally, and in fact I already do this. Companies would love to use (for example) Google's office tools on their own servers, and not have to trust Google all the time. It's all about controlling who has a copy of the data, about maintaining privacy/secrecy.

I'm thoroughly impressed with Google services. That being said, Google "software" sucks. Only Google Desktop and Google Earth stand out, and Google Earth was acquired from Keyhole. Furthermore, compared to X1 or spotlight or even good old slocate, Google Desktop sucks. It took up 2 gigabytes of hard drive space to index a 40 gig drive, that's really really bad.So I don't really care that Google would partner with any specific OS vendor, because their value is in their services which can be accessed with

We have been looking at this all the wrong way. Microsoft is branded an Evil Empire while Google is exhaled, hence the hoopla about Google expansion (whoopie-doo, OSX can run Goog13). Perhaps it is time to consider the alternative?Consider that Bill Gates puts his money where his mouth is in terms of giving the largest private donations to fight AIDS and poverty, not buying up party planes and grabass photoshoots like certain individuals in charge of a certain search enGine.

Apple's new iTV gizmo coming out in January will be able to feed google and youtube video to your television in a nice handy way. I think the idea is to bring a new age of video to the masses via google and Apple.

Any effort made by companies to support more than just microsoft properly is a good thing in my books.

Here's to hoping that Adobe catches up in this dept. soon.
(who would have thought that that would ever happen?)

Anyone paying attention to apple's hardware in the 68k era, which stretched on into unreasonableness for ages; Apple had about 1/4 to 1/2 of the price:performance ratio of the PC until the G4 came out. Then it was only stupidly expensive, not ridiculously expensive. It finally arrived a

Sometimes it's not about "not being able to figure something out", it's about personal preference and ability to effectively collaborate with people in your own line of work. If someone runs Photoshop on a Mac instead of a PC, chances are they have a good reason for it, just like you might choose to run games in Windows instead of on Mac OS X or Linux. (That said, I wouldn't rule out that some people just can't figure Windows out, but based on what I've seen - my sister has worked in advertising for years -

I would like to see two things from Google... firstly, some gee whizz apps appearing first for Linux, and secondly, them to come out with a Google branded Linux with full indemnity against any patent(s) that Microsoft may allege to be infringed by Linux...

Your munch more likely to see something for OS X before Linux. Regardless of superiority its simple economics... there are more OS X users than Linux users out there regardless of how many machines run Linux.

I wouldn't be so sure. Google are mid-development of their in-house developer desktop OS Goobuntu [wikipedia.org], an Ubuntu [ubuntu.com] derivative made by Google for the task. Furthermore don't forget that Google's next biggest 'market' is in Asia, where Linux desktop growth is formidable to say the least, far surpassing desktop Linux growth we've seen elsewhere in the West. Don't forget also OS X isn't a migration target for whole governments and their administrations either - comprising a large chunk of the so-called enterprise mar

I'll consider calling it that when Linux is simple enough for the majority of the "people" can understand it. Right now, that just isn't the case.

When OSX breaks it's just as hard to get it back going as Linux. Actually, it's a lot harder! Just getting OSX to single user mode takes half a dozen commands (on 10.3 anyway; it's only like three or four on 10.4.) On linux it takes no commands; once you're in as root, you're in and you can reset your password. Unless it fails to mount root or something, but t

Linux wins on installation flexibility, hardware flexibility, and esoteric kernel tweaks. And for stability and ongoing maintenance of long-uptime server systems, it absolutely rocks. But for a desktop system, no thanks. Better than windows but there is no way I'd give up OSX (and I used a linux on the desktop full time for about 8 years (mostly Debian/Gnome but also KDE in the early days) before I "switched").Not to say that OSX is perfectly consistent. I've found problems before -- for example as a dv

Single-user mode: Very easy, just hold down COMMAND-S at startup. With applejack installed repairs can be very quick. In a pinch archive-and-installing the system gets you back to where you were very quickly, preserving settings.

Context menus: Actually Mac uses them all over the place now, and they are comprehensive.

Mac Consistency: You're completely wrong about application behavior. For all applications, not just the Finder, only the clicked-on window comes to the front. An application that uses PALETTES (like Photoshop) shows them when one of its windows is active. The key-combination to hide apps is COMMAND-H for all apps that don't override it for legacy reasons. Adobe apps traditionally use Cmd-H for "Extras" so they change the hide key to COMMAND-CONTROL-H. In any case, you can always COMMAND-OPTION-CLICK any Dock icon to hide all other apps. Icons appearing under the Dock: It's so easy to avoid. Put the Dock on the side of the screen and make it smaller for the best experience.

I have high doubts he has ever played with OS X. He didnt even get OS Xs install setup right. Its probably the easiest install setup of any OS out there and has remained pretty much unchanged since OS 8

Single-user mode: Very easy, just hold down COMMAND-S at startup. With applejack installed repairs can be very quick. In a pinch archive-and-installing the system gets you back to where you were very quickly, preserving settings.

Never heard of applejack. Why should it be hard to deal with the system without additional software? It's easy to get to single user mode but at least as of 10.3 (We're unlikely to spend the money to go to 10.4 as long as the apps run on 10.3 - and when Adobe CS3 comes out, we'r

These days distributions like Xandros and Ubuntu require no CLI intervention on the part of the user for daily desktop tasks. This was certainly not the case a few years ago. The odd install may require CLI interaction however, hence the need for more like System76 [system76.com] and big vendors like HP and Dell to push pre-installs.

"Partnering" with Linux (is that even possible?) would not be as smart a business decision. Apple has handheld devices in millions of consumers' hands, a growing number of computers on peoples' desks and partnerships within the entertainment industry -- all things Google wants. Their pockets also just happen to be lined deep with cash. If you haven't noticed, Google has been making huge inroads into video and community collaboration -- why not partner with the company that has already done much of the di

And your point is what exactly? We're talking about two completely different things here.Everyone knows Google runs Linux -- for their systems. Most companies I know have at least some services on Linux. I know very few that are seriously running Mac OS X Server.

That has nothing to with business relationships, strategic partnerships, or what will ultimately bring them in gobs of cash.

It's like a company running Verizon for their landline service, then setting up a strategic partnership with Cingular. Th

"Firstly, some gee whizz apps appearing first for Linux," Why? More people use Windows than Linux. I would be happy if they came out at the same time."and secondly, them to come out with a Google branded Linux with full indemnity against any patent(s) that Microsoft may allege to be infringed by Linux..."Why? Really why would Google do that?Google isn't a charity it is a business. How would this help Google make one cent of income?I could see IBM doing this. IBM does make a lot of money from Linux and let's

Google isn't a charity it is a business. How would this help Google make one cent of income?

Companies regularly make strategic moves that make them money in the long term, via an indirect route. Google throwing their support and development behind a desktop Linux distro could do a number of things. It could provide a stable target for other developers. It could promote a commoditization of the OS, and thus remove MS's largest weapon against them. It could save Google money internally by providing a cheap

"It could provide a stable target for other developers. " How? Linux is the least stable target by nature. Anyone can change or modify anything. That is why OS/X is so easy. It is the lease open so it is the most stable target."It could save Google money internally by providing a cheaper platform for their employees internally."Ubuntu, Open Suse, and even Gentoo are all good enough for for Google to deploy internally. This is Google we are talking about."Frankly I am having less hope for a Desktop Linux by

Well if Google picked or made one distro, that would make for a stable target for them and anyone else who wanted to contribute. We're talking about the benefits to Google of Google sponsoring a distro.

Ubuntu, Open Suse, and even Gentoo are all good enough for for Google to deploy internally.

Frankly the problem is the open source faithful.People WANT TO BUY Photoshop. They do not want to learn GIMP. They want the FREEDOM to buy software.People want to buy nvidia and ATI video cards. They do not care about binary blobs. And they do not want to be educated about how evil closed source is. Want to know why? They will never look at the source. If they did they would never understand it.OS/X gives people the choice to buy the stuff they want instead of hoping that someone will write it.I love FO

"Believe it or not, programmers are "people" too."Yes and I am one of them. Just about the only source I look at under Linux is example code. While having the source is nice it is a rare programmer that will dig into the kernel source.Programmers are a very small part of the user base of computers today. Sad as that maybe. I was looking at cars and the salesperson made some comment about the on-board computer. It was something like computers run everything these days and no body understands them. It was fu

Mac's don't enjoy a huge portion of the market share when looking at the overall picture, but when you look at some key professional markets -- music, video, and web design and programming, Mac's are actually pretty popular. Only makes sense that Google, who has catered unconditionally to developers would do such a thing. Not to mention, it just makes sense to support a platform that is in direct competition with Google's own competition, that being Microsoft.

Mac's don't enjoy a huge portion of the market share when looking at the overall picture, but when you look at some key professional markets -- music, video, and web design and programming, Mac's are actually pretty popular.

And also note that the the Mac marketshare is on the rise. For notebooks, especially, it's becoming significant. Any time I'm in a local coffeeshop or other place where there are people using notebook computers, 30-50% of them are Macs (typically iBooks and non-pro MacBooks). Five yea

Also, when it comes to video editing or music mixing, macs only have an advantage in basic amateur jobs. If you want to do anything serious, you'll want a windows computerNow THAT was funny. Show me any professional shops using Windows for serious video or audio production, and I'll show you the most miserable, mislead team of designers in the World...

The largest threat to Google's online services business is Microsoft. Microsoft can and does illegally leverage their monopoly on desktop OS's to defeat superior offerings from competitors. Microsoft is putting a lot of resources into defeating Google, not only by making comparable services, but by tying those services to Windows and tying the Web in general to Windows by their use of proprietary technologies and their intentional refusal to fully implement standards in IE. Microsoft's plan is obviously to

Do you mind elaborating how exactly Microsoft is leveraging its monopoly to defeat Google?

Bundling IE is the major method, and then what they include and do not include in IE.

The only concrete example I see here is that they do not implement standards in IE - but pray, I ask you, does Firefox fully implement all the standards?

Well, Firefox does implement standards in general. Every time I've followed the W3C spec it has worked in Firefox (and Safari and Opera, etc.) but it has not worked in IE. IE implements about 50% of the standards while other browsers are close to 90% I'd guess. No one is perfect, but IE versus the industry shows a huge difference.

All of this, however, is academic. Firefox is not bundled with a monopoly and what works and what is included and what is broken does not help the Firefox team take over some other market. Unless you have a monopoly, you can't use that monopoly as leverage. If Firefox does not implement some feature, it is just as easy to use Opera. If IE fails to implement something, because it is bundled in Windows, most people will not switch because everything else is harder. It requires education, knowledge, and technical expertise to download, install, and run any browser but IE.

Last time I checked, Firefox 2 did not pass the ACID2 test (if that's any measure of standards).

The ACID2 test is edge cases for the most part, not a test of how comprehensively a given browser adheres to standards. It is like shining a laser on a mirror to see how reflective it is. Firefox and Opera and Safari are all consumer grade mirrors and the ACID2 test is useful for determining which is best. IE is like a piece of aluminum and using the ACID2 test on it is a waste of time.

IE7 is a great improvement over IE6 and an indication that Microsoft is listening, and doing something to change themselves.

I auto-generate some pages. I wrote the code based upon the spec. When I wrote it, I tested it. It worked fine in every single browser I could find, except IE, which completely failed because they did not implement most of CSS2 and any of XHTML that was not coincidentally HTML. When IE7 came out I tested it too. It completely failed to render as well, and added an additional random bug. From reading the IE dev teams comments it seems they're up to implementing about 50% of CSS2 and still haven't implemented any XHTML. They fixed some bugs, but are nowhere near implementing the standards the rest of the industry has had for many, many years.

My point is that with so many eyes watching Microsoft at any given moment and at their every move (DOJ, EU, *every* software company affected by Microsoft), this monopoly thing is getting old.

I agree, MS should stop abusing their monopoly or the courts should actually take meaningful action against them. MS won't stop though, because they're making a fortune breaking the law. The courts won't act though, because MS is one of the largest contributors to both the Republican and Democratic parties and our government is absurdly corrupt.

Perhaps when making this statement, you should provide concrete examples on how exactly that is happening.

I did and I've elaborated upon them, but I find explaining antitrust abuse tedious. I've explained it on Slashdot a hundred times by now, but the vast majority of the people who respond have no understanding of the law or the purpose of the law. Somehow they missed that chapter in Econ 101. It isn't really all that complex, but I'm sick of explaining it over and over again. Five minutes with wikipedia and a reasonably intelligent person can see the obvious abuses from Microsoft and why they are detrimental/illegal. And yet, every time I post about MS's monopoly abuse someone has to respond with an analogy and those analogies always (and I do mean always) reference the actions of a company that is not a monopoly. Maybe these people are astroturfers, but I only have so much time.

Even your post, you compare IE to Firefox, but IE is bundled with Windows, which is a monopoly, while the Firefox team has no monopoly on anything. Why people can't understand how this changes things is beyond my understanding.

Now, you probably argue that Microsoft should basically *not* ship IE with Windows at all because that would be leveraging its monopoly. I argue that users should have a way to get online (out of the box), find the best browser out there and have the ability of uninstalling the current one and using the one they lile.

You're making a few false assumptions. Microsoft not bundling IE with Windows does not mean the computer people buy does not have a browser bundled with it. There is no need to make a bowser

The way I see it, Google wants to own the multi-billion dollar TV ad revenue market. And Apple is on the verve of owning the way TV is distributed from the internet to the living room.

Google + Apple is natch.

Additionally, Google has been long-rumored to want a "Google PC" -- if I was google I would OEM Mac hardware and ship it with "mom friendly" software that just does email, photos&tv, and web browsing software clients that only run full screen.

Additionally, Google has been long-rumored to want a "Google PC" -- if I was google I would OEM Mac hardware and ship it with "mom friendly" software that just does email, photos&tv, and web browsing software clients that only run full screen.

If that were the case, if they just wanted the hardware, wouldn't it make more sense for Google to go to Asus or whoever it is (I forget) who actually manufactures the Apple hardware? The only reason to go to Apple is if they don't want a "Google PC" but want OS

I have five Macs at home, and I think this would be silly. Google's "OS" is Linux based, so why run on what is really premium priced hardware? No, if Google is going to release a Google PC, they'd get their own box made to their own specs, and put their own OS on it. It's cheaper that way, and they would have more control over it.That said, Google really doesn't see a need to move into the PC hardware arena. Nor, are they interested in distributing their "OS". It's one thing supporting their "OS" at their c

Microsoft is starting to lose ground on the desktop. Apple is eroding market share from the top with expensive, trendy systems. Linux is coming from the bottom with the tech savy crowd that wants something flexible and Free.

We all now how hard Google wants to dominate video Ads, the way they dominate text. (to clarify I mean, adds appearing IN video content, not video format adds appearing in text content)

They are talking to the TV companies who currently control video distribution. But why tie yourself to yesterdays companies, it is iTMS (and possible YouTube) that are likely to control video content soon.

Google have already realised that keyword searching isn't a killer 'product' for video content, people just don't want to plug keyboards into their TV's. So the are looking at other ways to enter and dominate that ad market.

What surprises me is Google's (public) lack of contact with the big games companies. Obviously in-game advertising has significant potential, but it is also likely that the next gen winner will control a significant portion of the 'living room'. Why should a Blue-ray disc force you to sit though last months trailers when it is being played on a PS3 sitting on a nice fat broadband connection. Live may be for downloadable games now, but what would stop Microsoft using that network to push video (to your TV and/or Zune).

Safari is so broken I never use it. Periodically it reaches a point where all future attempts to connect to a web site fail with Safari hanging indefinitely as if waiting for a response from the server. Happens on a friend's Mac too.

Not only does Firefox work better on the Mac, it actually looks better than Safari, pretty weird given that we're talking about an Apple application here. So as long as Google properly support Firefox I'm happy. (Though I slightly prefer Safari RSS handling.)

Firefox looks better than Safari? There's just no disputing Firefox is a terrible, terrible port of a Linux/Windows application in look, let alone feel. No Keychain integration. Preferences are oddly arranged. Forms and controls behave like reanimated simulacra of their Cocoa equivalents. In short, nothing works the way a Mac user would expect them to. Are you a PC user or something?

I think the Mac really is the "Google PC" that has been rumored. The key thing is that I'll bet it will be more a symbiotic partnership instead of a re-badged Mac; the next version of OSX could ship with the entire suite of available Google Mac apps, Google says that the Mac works best for their software, maybe new apps and features that are not available on the Windows version, etc. I could also imagine.Mac taking on a more "Google" hue, with docs written in Writely or whatever available for sync on.Mac.

Even though their stuff is essentially web-based, Google still needs a delivery platform. As others have suggested, it's possible that the killer-apps of the future will be both on-and-offline and thus having both Apple and Google working on both sides of the equation, together they will provide enough benefit to take on Microsoft, who has proven time and again that they want the playground for themselves, alone.

If a Google/Apple partnership works out, they have a very real potential of hitting at both of Microsoft's profitable products: Windows and Office, upon which the MS empire rests.

If Singh's technical expertise and history of OS X wizardry any indication, we can hope for some cool Mac software from Google.

Although Singh's hiring is definitely a step in the right direction concerning Google's commitment to the Mac, it's been a long time coming. In the meantime, independent Mac developers have already started writing tools and utilities that bridge the gap between OS X and Google. Just a few examples (the first being a shameless plug, natch):

That would seem really redundant. One could argue Apple's Spotlight is better than Google Desktop because it is more extensible to multiple file formats (allows developers to write plug-ins). Spotlight was indexing more file formats before Google Desktop first version. Spotlight will index a document up to 10MB, Google indexes only the first 5,000 words in a file, while MSN indexes one megabyte. Also Dominic Giampaolo who created BFS for BeOS, shortly worked in Google and now Apple developing Spotlight to w

I've used Quicksilver for a while and I do like it. However, since having discovered Spotlight I don't see much of a need for it and this way I don't need yet another application running in the background.

I do like how I can customize Quicksilver's interface and how I can put it anywhere on the screen.

From the numbers I've seen, yes, kinda. They are gaining ground in the US and Europe (from 4% to about 6%) in sales at least. They are slightly losing ground worldwide as they can't keep up with the growth rate in computer use around the world.

Even in the free software world, development for the Mac just means porting from Linux to the Mac, and even then, only after the MS Windows port is finished.

After running linux as my primary desktop OS for SEVEN years, I bought a Mac three years ago.I wanted to have an easier time of managing music, movies, and photos as well as producing new content. What I found was that what was *possible* on Linux (after investing a ton of time) was not only possible, but actually as easy as could reasonably be expected on my Mac. I drank the kool-aid. Let's be clear here. I was a passionate advocate of Linux on the desktop - using it personally and professionally EVERY

As a fan of both BSD flavored Unix and the Mac GUI, I had always been hoping that companies would develop for the Mac just because it's so cool. I've just had to accept that things just don't work that way. Even in the free software world, development for the Mac just means porting from Linux to the Mac, and even then, only after the MS Windows port is finished.

That's on the the reasons why many "Mac ports" simply suck. I've been much more satisfied with Mac work-alikes than I have with Mac ports. Real, Mac

I'm a longtime Mac user, (since OS 6 came with my Mac ][cx), and I couldn't disagree more. Sure, OS 9 was the bees knees at the time, but when I got my hands on the first public beta of MacOS X, and installed it on my blue Powermac G3, I knew there would be no going back. Once version 10.0 was released, even as rough as it was, I had pretty much stopped using MacOS 9 by that point, and was just looking for new OSX apps to use. By 10.1, I didn't even boot MacOS9 anymore, and going back was painful. MacOS X,

Have you thought that they always show Macs when they take cameras in because the Macs look better and the 'image' of the Mac fits closer to the image they would like to project of the work environment?

They don't have to make everyone stop working, they control where cameras and tours are going to go. All they have to have is a policy that if you work in a highly visible area, you're going to use a Mac.

You might be interested in iPartition. It's not free, but it's more flexible than/Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility. There are others, but this is the only one that quickly comes to mind. Don't bother asking Powerquest/Symantic to make a Mac version of Partiton Magic, ports of existing Windows utilities generally suck on other platforms.http://www.coriolis-systems.com/iPartition.php [coriolis-systems.com]

As for other Mac Applications, there are several websites you can check out for various Mac apps. I have never found a short

One thing that you might be able to help me with is maybe a utility along the lines of partition magic to configure partions on my mac...

Have you tried Applications: Utilities: Disk Utility.app? I'm not sure what you're trying to do, but the disk utility can manage partitions on your mac and if you have an Intel machine, can nondestructively partition them.

Anything in particular you're looking for as far as a music player goes? I was a die-hard Winamp user since right before we were grumbling about version 3;).I'm using iTunes combined with QuickSilver [blacktree.com] as a music player right now. I find the combination works well. You can play most common combinations of music (album, artist, genre, etc.) with a few keystrokes, and you can also run playlists if you've set them up beforehand.

For ripping, I use Max [sbooth.org]. It can simultaneously rip to FLAC, OGG, MP3, and others

Macs were so sick of getting there ass kicked they made a good OS.I grew up with Macs sucking hardcore. I always believed that a mac was flashy and didn't do anything. My girlfriends brother in law showed me Mac OSX and it's so amazing it shouldn't count as a Mac OS.

That's because Mac OS X is more like NeXTSTEP 5.x than it is Mac OS 10.x.

Steve Jobs and his engineers took over when Apple bought NeXT* in 1997. First step was damage control, next step was marketing, and now we're finally seeing the sweet produ

You are forgetting that NeXTSTEP has improved at Apple. It was at v 4 when Apple bought NeXT in the final days of 1996.Rhapsody, 10.0, 10.1 = v 510.2 = v 610.3 = v 710.4 Tiger = v 8

10.5 Leopard = v 9

Mac OS X gets the ten from its legacy of Mac versions leading up to it, but Apple uses the NeXTSTEP version numbering system to version Darwin, the core OS. The major version of ten indicates the version of the new platform (i.e. Tiger's Darwin is v 8, and todays' 10.4.8 is Darwin 8.8).

I would make that colon a semi-colon: "It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along; it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions." making the two different sub-clauses.

It was like "Google in paperback form" because it had listings of everything you could imagine, thus the "Catalog" part of the name. I'm sure Jobs thinks the other stuff of Google too, but I don't think he meant to say that at that moment.